Rocking the Cradle
by hyperdude
Summary: You and I are different." An invidious whisper twines itself around Aberline’s heart in the clear tone of a young twelve-year old boy. A different take on Aberline and Ciel's Ep 20 conversation, if Ciel was more manga-based. Very slight AbberlineCiel.


Rocking the Cradle

Standard Disclaimers Apply.

A/N: So I've sort of wanted to write some Aberline/Ciel for a super long time. I've only seen one fic dealing with these two, and I think they have some potentially interesting relations between them, Ciel and Scotland Yard in general really. But with the anime in mind especially with Aberline, who can be argued as Ciel's opposite in ideology. The context for this is, I think, Episode 20 when Aberline sort of offers Ciel a way out, which I heard summarized as, Aberline telling Ciel to forgive and forget the past and just move on to the future. This is my take on how things might have went if anime!Ciel might've been a little more like manga!Ciel. I hope you enjoy this second go at Kuroshitsuji, and I hope that Ciel is in character enough for you guys. :D Enjoy!

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Pretty little baby, he flips a coin between his fingers, gold clinking on gold as the coin meets the sealing ring encircling his slim, middle finger. He stops for a moment, rubs his thumb along the rough edges of the pence-coin, smiles at the man sitting at the chair across from him, knife-sharp, shadow deep and dark, white and blindingly innocent.

And little blue baby laughs, loud and clear, the sound of breaking crystalline glass, screeching and shrieking scattered amount pure drops of sound.

"Ridiculous!" he spits, bending over in his laughter, lifting his legs from the ground as if to parody his own child-self by kicking them into the air in humor. Slim, lithe legs, seductive like a woman's, so adult are they. And he reaches over suddenly, grasping the red stubble-covered chin in a deceptively gentle left-handed grip, yanking harshly on the neat tie with his left, and Inspector Fred Aberline crashes down to his hands and knees.

"This is what people _are_!" says young baby Phantomhive, face still edged in child's fat, beautiful blue eyes sparking in white fire, lips curling into a smile hiding a snarl. His fingers dig harshly into Aberline's skin, the Phantomhive ring biting the Inspector like a curse branding his cheek, a slight pain somehow significant but still dismissible. "Do you see how you kneel before me now?! At the level of my shoe?" The Phantomhive sneers, snatches his hand away as if he has been poisoned.

"People are dogs, Inspector, easily trained and used. We are the basest of all animals, the only animals who will sacrifice our kin for our own benefit, and not even for the sake of evolution." Sky and sunshine leaking in through the large office window, and baby boy stands in front of it like he wants the sun to melt his wings; the wax that holds the feathers together has long fallen away, and they are coming apart now that he doesn't need them. He lost his flight a long time ago.

"But you have a future! You have a chance that none of us have, because you have status! You don't need to be a dog; you don't have to be one!" Aberline shouts desperately. "You're just a child! You have a whole life ahead of you!" He is reaching out, and though still on his knees, he seems to glow white when he does, sunshine glancing off his russet hair and flashing in baby boy's eyes and blue, blue baby smirks ironically.

"And what then Inspector?" he asks calmly, coolly, sliding into the large leather desk, sliding his hands familiarly over the arms, stilling as he speaks. "Stay quiet? Hide in the mansion? Allow myself to be killed here, rather than play the game? For an Inspector, you're a rather poor one." Baby boy steeples his hands on the desk, leaning forward, invisible secrets and black smoke curling from his lips, underground man, demon-bred child.

"You're disgusting, Aberline, the kind man of the worst sort, taking an interest in everything and anything. We're all tools. The Queen doesn't care that I'm twelve as long as I do my job. Society doesn't care that I'm the Queen's dog; to them I'm a fool. Scotland Yard may not approve of me and my independent actions, but they continue with it because they've no other choice. Without me and my connections, they'd never get anywhere." He raises a wrapped sweet in the air, the golden P embellishing the sides possessing no metallic luster or shine, just a dull matte. The child, his fingers tap in rhythmic monotone on the cherry wood desk clear of paperwork because he has finished it all already in an early morning fit of boredom. Under half-lidded eyes, he tracks the movements of the stilled statue sitting off to the side of one of his chairs, hesitancy wrapped up in a tan trench coat in the guise of a pale, horribly, terribly, loathingly kind man.

"There's no such thing as a man who's inherently good, no such thing as a higher power who will help us with our hopes and dreams. Anything we want, we'll have to grab with our own hands and take it. And humans, Aberline, have a very special ability that can be used to that end." He tosses the sweet to Aberline, who is still kneeling, saccharine, and an adult smile on the baby-face. Apple, and the hard candy inside is a bright, damning red, glistening like rubies and fresh blood.

"Do you want to know? It has nothing to do with class or money, I assure you, Inspector. It has nothing to do with jobs, nothing to do with gender or age. It's natural to all humans." The boy's voice is quiet, and his shadow moves with him as he gets up from his leather seat, shoes muffled by plush carpet, fine cloth making a whipping sound in the same way a fine, regal nobleman's presence slices through air itself.

"Earl…"

And baby boy is not so childish anymore, face so close to Aberline's field of vision, smile sharp in all its edges, lips plush, breath sweet and fragrant as he whispers blasphemies into the Inspector's ears.

"Humans have the unique ability to sin, dear Inspector. No other creature is able to do so. Animals are guided by instinct, but humans are guided by conscience and morality, and at any time, we can decide to betray those values." Adult baby boy slides around Aberline, a lurking demon, tracing a hand down the cheek so softly that if Aberline, with his rapid breath, closes his eyes, he can imagine a woman caressing his cheek. A smooth voice, crackling like a fire in his ear, lulls him in like a siren's song as his eyes open wide, murmuring to him, confiding to him, "We are so, so easy to break Inspector. Humans are so fragile, and we cannot do anything to change that. I cannot ignore the past Inspector. That is like forgiving those who have done wrong to me." The hands caress his cheek, play with his red curls for a moment, before clamping viciously about Aberline's face.

The Inspector's neck is tilted up abruptly in a painful manner, Aberline uttering a strangled moan, while hot waves of sound, unrelenting and merciless as grown baby boy's voice begins to rumble in his chest, voice raspy and heavy with hate, dry with hellfire, fingers convulsively gouging slim red lines into Aberline's face. "God doesn't exist Inspector. He never helped me. I can believe in no one but myself. I will punish those who wrong me. I will knock down all those who stand in my way." And Ciel laughs.

"I see you do not understand. But I did not expect you to."

Aberline struggle to comprehend, and does not fight back, afraid of striking a child, afraid of the boy who whispers so tantalizingly close to his ear, afraid of the blue baby boy who is neither demon, adult, or child. "Earl, you're mad! There's always a choice. There has to be another way. You don't have to hurt them back. You—"

"Do be quiet Inspector," Ciel snaps, letting go of him. "The past makes my future; if I do not look at the past, I cannot look at the future. I will not forget. I will not forgive. Why should I forgive? Humans are tools, are puppets. We can fight, and in the end, we'll find out that all we've been fighting for has never existed in the first place. And we sin, to grab our futures with our own hands. We sin because it is the only way to take control of ourselves."

Baby boy tucks in Aberline's tie, the Inspector still rooted to his spot on the floor. Aberline catches a whiff of burning wood and spice, thinks of roses and fire, of almost-diminished candles and darkness.

"Someone like you cannot understand someone like me. Don't pretend to. It's pathetic." Baby boy runs him through with a glance of blue, voice disinterested and heavily laced with annoyance hands hard as he pushes the Inspector out the door.

"You and I," blue baby Ciel hisses to him through the closing door crack, the dividing wall, "are different. We sin, Aberline. That's why humans, with that unique ability, cannot be crushed. We always want to strike back, we allow hate to fuel us, allow ourselves revenge and vengeance, and that's what makes us strong." An invidious whisper twines itself around Aberline's heart in the clear tone of a young twelve-year old boy, and baby baby, blue baby boy closes the door on him.

"That's the difference between us, Inspector. And that's why in the end, I'll be standing, and you'll be dead."


End file.
